


The Tower

by Heller_Highwater



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Real World, F/M, Modern Era, Paranormal, Santeria, Supernatural Elements, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, sorta-magic, the unexplained, the unseen world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2020-11-28 01:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20958437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heller_Highwater/pseuds/Heller_Highwater
Summary: It's 2019 and the world his parents grew up in is not the world Asra inherits.





	1. Chapter 1

Did he really need this degree?

Did he really have to go to school and submit himself to the pedantic teachings of someone he could go his whole life without hearing? If he dropped out now, would his parents disown him a little, or a lot?

“Asra!”

A lot, then.

Asra had many talents as he was told by family and others who shan’t be named, but his best skill was sleeping. He did it everywhere, anywhere, anytime, and during any occasion. He was unbiased when it came to the realms of Morpheus. A chair was as good as a bed, in some cases.

He slipped to the floor like his pet snake Faust whenever she had snake business to attend to. He landed with a thud, and stared at the glow in the dark stickers on the midnight blue ceiling, and the swathes of exotic fabrics he’d pinned wall to wall.

Again he asked himself; did he really need this degree?

“Asra,” said his mother, stepping into the room with very little notice. “What are you doing on the floor?”

“I don’t question things at this point, mom. This is how the world works. I wake up, I lay on the floor. I think about which lecture I’m going to sleep in.”

“You have a test today.”

“And I’ll probably sleep for that, too.”

She scoffed, and threw back the curtains. The light cut into his eyes, and the birds voiced their needs for a mate.

_Same._

“You insist on doing this every Monday, habibi.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have to if Mondays weren’t such shit—ow! Owie. Muuuuum.”

“Get up, and come down for breakfast, you ridiculous teapot.” She said. “Faust needs feeding, and so too do Chimes and Flamel.”

The rest of him slipped off the bed, and he crawled like a man dying of thirst to the bathroom. He’d face the Monday after breakfast. Or after lunch, if he wasn’t kidding himself.

It was customary to slide down the bannister—

“Don’t slide down the bannister, Asra.”

He walked down the rest of the way.

“Have I told you how radiant you are today?”

She eyed him wearily, as if he was trying to lay it on thick because he had broken something of granny’s, and was attempting to detract and hide the deed.

“What have you done now? And it’s only seven in the morning.”

“You wound me,” he said. “If you must know, oh ye of such little faith, nothing has happened. I’m just… gonnaleavethishereandhopeforthebest.”

He slid the report card that he was supposed to give his parents when the semester ended. The last one. The Christmas semester that had ended five weeks ago*. It wasn’t the most horrible thing he’d ever brought home—that rabid kitten notwithstanding—but his grades were either fantastic, or lacklustre, and there was no in between, no middle ground his parents could accept. He loved art and chemistry, though maths and physics could kiss a hallucinogenic frog for all he cared. It wouldn’t always be like this, however, only for his first year. He had his electives, and his cores which were subjects everyone in his year had to take, before they branched off and streamlined their timetables to specialise in their chosen fields later.

He didn’t know what he wanted to do, what he wanted to be. Asra was content being just another person; not an entrepreneur or an employer, not a great leader or revolutionary personality that could win a Noble Prize.

Asra was just Asra. But his parents didn’t understand that.

_Some people are destined for great things. Others are just here to clock in from nine to five._

He feared nothing more than a life bound to a desk, and buried under paper, subjected to the demands he could never meet. He saw what it did to his father, who worked at a bio-ware startup he created with friends from college. They built prosthetics, and re-innovated existing medical equipment like cochlear implants and hearing aids. It had been a dream come true in the beginning, his father said, but the dream became a job once money was involved, and with money came investors’ demands and unreasonable expectations. The dream turned into a chore, and all that kept him going, he said, was the smile on children’s faces when they could hear for the first time.

His mother operated in that general tech sphere as well. A roboticist, and former a part-time teacher at VIT, the Vesuvia Institute of Technology. Asra’s first pet had been a robot fox that had met a swift death in a puddle on a rainy day.

_RIP Foxy, you are still missed._

His parents had allowed him to forge his own path. If he didn’t want to be in the tech industry, he didn’t have to be. A dream come true. However, with no pressure from them, Asra was left to decide.

It was very much like staring at a blank piece of paper. He could do anything with that sheet; draw on it, paint it, rip it up, burn it. He had as many choices as his mind could come up with. And that was his problem. He wanted to be everything all at once, or sometimes none of them at all.

_I could be a snake breeder, and create rare morphs, _he thought. He loved Faust too much for that. Scratch that plan.

He’d think of something.

Asra breezed to school on his skateboard, not in a hurry to get to his mind-numbing lecture at nine. As he kicked off, goofy footed, a red Tesla pulled up alongside him.

He’d heard about stranger danger, but they typically drove creepy white vans. This was anything but bizarre, or odd.

“Good morning,” said the driver, a dark-skinned woman with purple hair pooling into her lap.

“It’s morning, but is it good? Hmmm.”

She laughed. “I was wondering if you could help me. I’m looking for the VIT Civil Engineering compound.”

“You’re a long ways off, I’m afraid. It’s clear across the campus.”

She sighed, lips twisted. “Could you possibly show me? I’ve been lost all morning.”

“Uh, sure, but a word to the wise, don’t offer rides around here. Some engineers haven’t seen a girl in months.”

“You’re free to try your luck.”

“Who me? Oh, I’m just here to look pretty and sleep so the teachers have someone to yell at,” he said. He leaned in through the window, hand extended. “Asra.”

“Nadia.”

He got in and buckled himself into the plush burgundy seats. It smelled of rare perfumes, and light incense.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but what do you study here?”

“The inside of my eyelids.”

“I hope you’re not serious.”

“No, I’m not. I’m supposed to be here for Chemistry but, I don’t know. I’m having a midlife crisis twenty years early.” He said. “Take a right here, then a left. The charging ports are near the sidewalk.”

She pulled into a parking space, perfectly parallel. “Thank you Asra. I do hope I get to see you more often.”

“I’ll be here, you can’t miss me.”

She looked at his white hair he hadn’t bothered to comb. “Tell you what, we can exchange numbers.”

“I, erhm, I only have a Nokia.”

She raised a brow, not a sign of judging, but that she sensed a story behind it.

“Long story short, I keep dropping my iPhones, aaaand a train ran over the last one I had, so my parents held an intervention and now I have an indestructible Nokia and the built in snake games to keep me company.”

“I see.”

“They said I have no concept of money,” he said. “Which isn’t wrong, I once tried to pay the barista in Starbucks with a jewelled seashell.”

“You sound full of stories, Asra. Here’s my card. Don’t be a stranger. We could have lunch together.”

“I’d like that.” He shut the door.

Asra trotted up the steps to his department, and went through the routine of putting his things into his locker, and ignoring the note with his name on it.

_Not today, Satan. Not tuh-day._

He found a seat in the lecture hall, near the wall but within a good range of the whiteboard. He didn’t even know what it would be on.

A girl dropped her book bag on the floor and stared at it for a while. He didn’t know what was going through her head, but he felt her anguish on a spiritual level.

With the books, she dropped into the chair and slouch.

“Nine ‘o’ clock in the fecking mornin’. Who does that?”

“Are you okay?”

She squinted in his direction. “That’s neither here nor there, is it? Point is, I’m here for a three hour lecture in the Principles of Inorganic Chemistry at nine. The in morn. On a Monday. Monday!”

He wasn’t going to ask the inevitable.

At some point during her bellyaching, the tutor had arrived, and shot off page numbers, and a brief overview of the day’s lecture.

“LOL,” said the girl. “Nah.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, it’s just, um, life is short, you know? And walking in the footsteps of those who came before can often lead you down the wrong path.” She said. “I apologise for wasting your time.”

“No, wasting my time is when you force yourself to attend my classes and give me a half-assed effort.” He said. “Look, we’ve all been where you are now. I was once a student who had to attend nine ‘o’ clock lectures to get where I am now. But this is what I always wanted to do. Now, mind you, my son likes working with his grandfather in the woodshed, and recently he made dovetail joints by hand and was so proud of it. He showed me, and I have it right there for everyone to see.”

He took off his glasses and wiped them.

“Do I tell him he has to forget all of that and take up science? No. He has his own path, like we all do, but when your parents are paying tuition, I suppose you aren’t afforded many choices.” He said. “What would you rather be doing?”

“I’ve asked myself that a lot,” she said. “My family is pretty average. We aren’t poor, but we aren’t rich, and we work nine to five like everyone else. Now, they want me to escape that rat race and have more than they did, but how do I tell them I’m okay with being a sales clerk, or an administrative assistant, or even a gallery assistant? Those are jobs we need right?”

“I think their concern is that those aren’t jobs you typically stay at for ten and twenty years, which is all that generation knows. But the world your parents grew up in no longer exists. Back when my dad was a ‘young man’, he devoted his life to General Motors, and worked on the assembly line. He stayed there for three decades. Three! Do you hear about that going on today?”

“No.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Anyway, either way, I hope you find something. Now! Back to me, and transition metal complexes.”

The girl exited the class, and Asra followed her until she disappeared through the door. Was it as simple as that, deciding that the path he thought he would hold faithful to simply wasn’t the one for you?

Was it alright to tell fate no? Or had fate already taken into account the divergence?

Asra slumped over his desk, counting the hours to lunch.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually used the tarot reading inside the game itself. Asra's three card reading.  
Yes, i know that reading was for me, but it fit, and that's how this story is going to unfold; as per the cards' reading.

The days blended into weeks, and the weeks into a solid month. Asra didn’t have to pass the time on his own, as he had made a friend of Nadia, a curious relationship he didn’t know he needed.

She was one of seven sisters from Praka, studying to be civil engineer to one day take that knowledge back home and help her parents provide for their country.

The other six sisters had careers in different fields. Nafizah, the eldest, ran Praka alongside her parents, but when she wasn't, she could be found in antique shops, or practicing her flower arranging.

Next came Nazali, who he knew through word of mouth. They were a doctor, and mentor to others in the profession. After Nazali there was Navra and her twin Nahara. The former was a potter, and ceramicist, while the latter was a martial arts specialist, and possessed many titles and accomplishments. Then there was Nasmira who owned a boutique and ran a blog. Second last came Natiqa, the ambassador of Praka.

At the end of such a dynastic line was Nadia, the baby. The youngest. She seemed to hate that part in particular. Or her sisters, Asra couldn’t tell. She certainly didn’t speak too fondly of her sisters, Nasmira most of all; a ‘condescending beauty queen’, Nadia had described. It was neither here nor there to Asra.

They were waiting in front of a vintage apothecary for Navra who had made the trip from her ceramic studio to visit Nadia, or rather, to rendezvous with her at the apothecary. Nadia wanted to be anywhere else. Family reunions were not a beloved pastime.

“My sister has never been one for being on time. I do apologise Asra.”

“It’s fine, Nadi.” He said. Asra peeked in through the original windows and saw the girl from the Chemistry lecture attending to a customer behind the counter.

The apothecary was also a health food supply shop and juice bar, the only one like it in Vesuvia. He read a plaque with an inscription darkened by a thin patina.

“Did you know this place was around during the Victorian era?”

“Yes,” she said, flipping open a pamphlet. “This place is a World Heritage site, and it has been family owned and run for generations. It also has everything you need to live a holistic life. I might just get a smoothie—”

“Hi Nadiiii!”

Nadia grimaced, upper lip curling.

“Navra.”

“Hi!” She was panting. “I’m so sorry I’m late! My friend brought her dog and time just slipped away from me.”

Navra turned her bright eyes on Asra, as if summing up his character in a few seconds. She was brimming with energy—_can’t_ _relate_—and dressed in vivid colours, and a statement necklace clinked and clanked as she moved; her fingernails were bare, but cut short, and her hands were dry from years of manipulating clay.

“Navra, this is my friend, Asra. Asra, this is my sister.”

“So nice to meet you! Nadia told me about you.”

“Good things I hope.”

“Of course. Nadi never has a bad thing to say about anyone. Except her ex of course, but he deserves it.”

“All right, Navra,” she said. “We have come as you requested to this place. Why are we here?”

“The smoothies are to die for, Nadia. Oh! And the smoothie bowls. And I’m also here to get some hand cream made. This place is a staple of Vesuvian culture, and an experience all its own.”

“I see. Might we go in now?”

The doorbell jingled, and a few people were in the other half of the shop, the modern part. Asra stood directly on the line where the Victorian era hardwood met marble tile, where the past and present met but didn’t mix. If he turned left, he could go back in time. And right, he could get a smoothie made by a fifth generation apothecary.

“Hey there, be with you in a second.”

A head bobbed behind the counter, dark hair braided elaborately.

She filled a paper bag with something fragrant, little chips of red leaves for a woman on the side who was talking with her animatedly.

“Here you go, one pound of dried hibiscus leaves.”

“Ta, love. Tell your aunty I said hi, and don’t be a stranger now.”

“I won’t. Thanks so much for your business.”

The woman left all smiles, and covertly sniffing the leaves through an opening in a bag. Asra would do the same. The scent made his mouth water.

“Hi there! Welcome to Lafayette’s.” She beamed, flushed. “What can I do for you today?”

“Hi! I came to get some of that potter’s cream I heard so much about.”

“Oh, that’s our dry hand balm. Excellent for doctors, nurses, mechanics. Anyone with dried and cracked skin.”

He recognized her from somewhere.

“You were in my Chem lecture.”

She rooted on the shelves, and climbed a step ladder to gain some height. “Yes, that is me. Here we go.” She said. “Will that be all?”

“We’ll also like a menu.”

“Certainly. If you’ll just migrate over here.”

“You seem a bit short staffed.”

“Yes, unfortunately. When school starts back, all our workers have to leave the nest, you know? Most of them were just Christmas jobs.”

“Ah.”

“If you know anyone looking for work, and has a good character, tell them to pop by and apply. My aunt has enough people for this juice bar, so it’s not too bad, but I could do with a hand for the apothecary.”

She seated them at a comfortable spot near the tinted windows, and laid their menus on the table. Navra’s order was wrapped in brown wax paper and secured with a shiny sticker with the apothecary’s “Someone will be with your shortly. I’m Morgan.”

“Hi, I’m Navra, and this is my little sister Nadia, and this is Asra.”

“Finally, a name to the face.”

“I hope it doesn’t disappoint.”

Morgan smiled darkly. “Oh, it doesn’t.” And she spun on a heel and returned to the Victorian half.

“Ooo, that was intense.”

“Navra, please,” said Nadia.

“It was certainly layered with something,” he said, watching Morgan tend to more customers. She leaned over the counter to give a toddler a boiled lollipop, and she relished the tiny ‘thank you’ she received.

A waitress came over, took their orders and disappeared into the kitchens. While he waited, Nadia and Navra had a terse conversation with the reluctance coming from Nadia, and her alone. He studied the apothecary more; the dark wooden shelves and drawers, the faux taxidermy crow, the bell jars and the twelve inch tall candles. Towards the rear of the store, there was a curtain drawn back, and a chain barred any traffic. A table sat by a window, a smooth royal purple cloth draped over it, and a stack of cards placed deliberately in the centre.

Asra was drawn to it, inexplicably, but the chain was an indication to look, not touch.

Morgan moved without a sound, her three inch thick platform boots put her at Nadia’s height, and him at eye level with her swanlike throat.

“See something interesting?” she said. “Or perhaps you want to know what the cards say?”

“I’m sorry?”

“My aunt takes after the creole side of the family. The witchcraft, the obeah, the Santeria and the voodoo. The sons and daughters of former slaves who escaped came here, and married into Vesuvia’s melting pot. If there’s one tradition aunty keeps alive, it is the tarot reading.”

“So, you were taking chemistry to help with this?”

“Mhmm, even though I’m terrible at the theory part of it,” she said. “To me, this is all about context really. For example, honey is great for a sore throat, but it can’t do much if that sore throat is caused by strep. I can make you honey lozenges, or a special tea, or even a vapour rub, but I can’t heal what a doctor should be handling. And neither am I going to submit myself to that torture. I love this job too much to pervert it into something I will later hate, and blame myself for hating it.

“There was a time in Vesuvia that this apothecary was all the people knew. Plague doctors bought their herbs from here. Women bought love potions, men bought favours. But at one point or another, they all came back for a reading. So, can I interest you in one? It’s on the house.”

“Asra, your food,” said Nadia.

“Coming. What do these readings do?”

“They do many things, and say a lot more. Sometimes they talk about the past, the present and the future, and sometimes they are so annoyingly vague that I have no idea what they’re saying. Ah, such is life.”

Morgan unhooked the chain, and waved him through. His feet took him there regardless of what his upper half wanted. She pulled out a chair for him_—_snazzy_—_switched on the AC, and seated herself on the other side. It was the first time he could look at her without interruption.

She was olive complexioned like Navra, with eyes slanted like a cat, as if she were a familiar taken human form. Her hair was done in a Victorian style, a bun at the base of her neck, wisps of hair curling around her face. Nails painted a dark colour, she wore a single ornate ring, that had a latch. _A poison ring. _Asra wasn’t in 2019 Vesuvis anymore, was he? This room escaped time, the ravages and the forward motions.

“Ready?”

He nodded. “What do I have to do?”

“Let’s have a glimpse into the past, the present and the future,” she said, shuffling the deck. She cut it into three smaller sets. “Choose.”

He tapped the deck he wanted.

Morgan spread them out, and gestured again. “Choose three.”

And he did so, heart rushing in his ears.

She flipped over the first. “Eight of Swords Upright, this represents the past. You may find yourself unable to see a clear way out of a difficult situation. But do not fall victim to your fear. You already have the tools you need to break free.”

She moved on to the next, the present as it stood so familiar and yet uncertain.

“The Tower rises above the world, a beacon of great upheaval and crumbling structure.” She said. “This is painful, but the Tower offers you a balm; things will get better when the dust settles.”

On to the last, the future.

“The Sun, reversed. The Sun shines weakly in the sky, threatened by storm cloud building on the horizon. You may be struggling to see the good in a bad situation. Things will be alright; storms never last.”

Finished, she leaned back, satisfied. Asra on the other hand regretted the reading.

“You look like I just kicked your puppy,” she said.

“That was terrible! My life sounds like a mess.”

“That’s the beauty of living, isn’t it?”

He sputtered. “No! No, it’s not. What are these situations you mean? Why am I going to have trouble seeing the good in a bad situation? And what is supposed to be painful? This reading?”

Her lips quirked, covered in a homemade lipstick, dark red like her nails.

“I take it you live a charmed life,” she said. “Let me see what kind of person you are.”

Morgan shuffled the deck for herself, with him in mind.

“The cards are telling me you have a clear cut plan for yourself, but life seldom goes according to plan. Again the Tower comes up in your reading, symbolising an upheaval.” She rubbed her chin. “Can I be honest with you?”

“Now you ask my permission?”

Her eye twitched. “This is what life’s all about. The straight road with its many twists and turns. You just have the blessing and the curse of knowing beforehand.” She said. “Take everything in stride, Asra.”

“Okay,” he said. “Do you do love readings?”

“Yes, but I charge heavily for those. They are the most dangerous kind and reveal everyone’s true character.”

“How do you mean?”

“People think that soulmates and twin flames are inherently good things, and that they mean happily ever after. They don’t. Imagine the cards telling you the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with isn’t the one meant for you. What are you supposed to do? Dump your partner and go out into the world in search of this illusive character who might have a life of their own, a life which they will not give up for their supposed soulmate? I actually had a woman go berserk on me because the guy she was obsessed with wasn’t supposed to be hers. He cheated on his past girlfriend with her, and then cheated on her with someone else, who he is still with to this day. I told her to move on. She refused.” She said. “Then a guy came in as asked if his fiancée was the one. The cards said yes, but he still left her. Turns out he had a congenital heart condition, and it took his life a year later. He wanted to save her the pain of thinking they’d have forever together, when they were only promised a few months.”

She reached across the table and squeezed his hand.

“Life is beautiful and magical, Asra. The cards only tell one part of the story, the prologue, if you will. The beginning, middle, end and epilogue are all up to you.”

“Thank you.”

“Let me get you a sweetie. You look like you could do with it.”

He was alone in the back room, deck of cards eerie and foreboding. Brazenly, he lifted the card on top, and flipped it over.

The Tower.

Asra shuffled again, and picked another.

The Tower.

Again, thoroughly this time.

And again, the Tower.

In his ear like a lover, both spurned and cherished, a voice spoke to him about the card. The card had chosen him, and not the other way around.

The Tower was the destruction of the old ways, and the false ego. It symbolised that life had to fall apart for a new and better you to emerge from the ruins. All towers that crumble can be rebuilt and made better, and so too can he become something more than a sleepy soul dragging his feet through life.

Asra laid the card on the table, no longer afraid of it. If fate was prompting a renaissance, he was hardly one to fight it. He would let the tower crumble, and claw his way out until with bloodied hands if that was what the task required. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Hey, you're sticking around for the third chapter! Thanks friend, ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)

He brushed his teeth, and was about to settle in for the night, but the reading was still on his mind.

It was all he could think about. All he could worry about, and dissect to grasp of its hidden meanings. But better still was the buzz wrapped around the hand Morgan touched; she’d left him trapped chaotically between cloud nine and hell, paradise and Dante’s burning inferno. Asra had drunk her in like the god’s ambrosia, and he counted the hours until he saw her next.

He switched off the light, and tossed back the covers, but heard a thud in the night. He looked at Faust in her 90 gallon aquarium. She rested on her own squishy curves, watching him, pink tongue tasting the air. He was a bit overzealous, he’d admit, and had given her everything he thought a python would want; lots of soft substrate to burrow in, hides and a bowl of water large enough for her to soak in. He included tree branches and rocks for shedding season. And every month or so, he’d change it around for her to have something new to explore. He had bought a large crystal from the apothecary, and tucked it into a corner.

Immediately, Faust took interest.

“What this?” he imagined her saying. “That is an amethyst cluster for you, sweet girl.”

The tips were smoothed and wouldn’t poise a threat to her eyes or tender scales, post-shed. She draped herself over it, pleased.

“Ah, the Snake God is content with my offering! Today’s been a good day.”

Still, he hadn’t seen to what had cause the bump in the night. He left his room, trekking barefoot on the cool tile.

“Dad?”

“Yes, it’s just me. Sorry.”

“What are you doing?” he said. His father’s workshop was a chaotic mess, but an organised chaotic mess. He knew where everything was, including the wrenches, and screwdrivers. Even the tiny screws he was currently looking for.

“Trying to get my gears going, you know?” he said, glasses low on his nose. “Your mom and I are collaborating again. Last time we did—”

“Please don’t finish that.”

“You were born nine months later. Aaha!”

“Neat,” he said, horrified. Parents never missed a moment to remind their children of the moment of their conception, no matter how gross it was or how little their interest was in the subject. “What’s this project, then?”

“A war vet came to us asking if we can make him an arm.”

A shiver creeped up his back.

“Oh?”

“Mhmm. He lost his to an IED. Got honourably discharged.” He said. “I’ve been waiting for something like this to come along, so I can show our investors what I’m really made of.”

“Just be careful, okay dad?”

“I will sport, I will.”

He looked over his glasses again. “What’s wrong? You look so far away.”

“Do you believe in the occult?”

“Erm… wot?”

“Let me rephrase. Do you believe in the unexplainable?”

“To a certain degree, I suppose. Like, that phantom limb, for instance. Approximately 60 to 80% of amputees report sensations in their amputated limb, and most of those cases say that the limb still hurts. Can science explain why this happens? No. So do we just discredit it? Also no. We believe them and find a way to bring them a measure of peace.”

“So, if I were to tell you about a tarot reading I got today, would you laugh at me?”

“I’d never laugh at you Asra. I’d only tell you to be careful. Some people are hacks, frauds and con-artists.”

“But this one’s different, I swear it. She didn’t tell me anything I wanted to hear, but a part of me knew what she was saying was right,” he said. Asra pulled out a stool by Salim’s desk and watched his father work on the prototype, and passed him tools when he called for them.

“Recently I’ve been wondering about my own path, if this field of science is the one for me. I grew up watching you and mom build pieces after piece, but I was happy just watching.”

“There are a thousand other professions out there, Asra. You don’t have to follow us. I will be proud no matter what you do, unless you chose to be a mercenary or an assassin.”

“Pfft, don’t worry, that’s not my thing.” He said. “I love science, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t even sit down for three hours listening to people drone on and on, killing my love for the subject.”

He handed his father a Phillips head. “I remember when you were about two or three, and we had just gotten the gardens landscaped and thriving. You were outside every day, checking on the little birds in their nests, on the butterfly chrysalises. By the time you were done, your hair was brown, and you had every single kind of bug trapped in it. Scared your mother more times than she would have liked, but the point is, you were happy. That’s why you chose science. There is a lot you can do with a Bachelor’s.”

“I remember spending time in the gardens. I had a book, and I used to draw what I found, right?”

“Mhmm. We have one of your drawings over there. It’s old and faded, but you had followed a toad after a rainstorm, and brought him into the house. Your mother got new grey hairs after that.”

“As is the running theme in our family.”

“Indeed it is,” he said. “What did the fortune teller read for you?”

“She’s not really a fortune teller, but she told me to expect an upheaval, and since I don’t really do much these days, I can only assume the upheaval will affect you. Now you say you and mom are collaborating on a project? It sets off alarm bells.

Salim looked at Asra, lines creasing the side of his mouth.

“And you feel this deeply about it?”

He nodded.

“I will be careful,” he said. “But I already signed the contract. Try not to worry about it, hmm?”

“Okay.”

“Now, about this girl you’ve got heart eyes for.”

“Dad!”

“Don’t hide it, do not hide it Cotton Tail. I see you blushing as you talk about the fortune teller.” His lips curled. Smug, like a know-it-all. “Who is she? Whoooo is she?”

“She was in my Chem class, but dropped out,” he said. “She actually operates Lafayette’s with her aunt.”

“Layfette’s hmm?” He said, nostalgia tinting his words. “I went there when your mom and I were dating, and asked the woman about flowers she might like. There weren’t any florists around at the time. She gave me a bouquet, and a shiny brooch for her hajib.”

“Yeah, I think that’s her aunt.”

Salim had abandoned his work, and listened to Asra like a giddy school girl hearing about her best friend’s first crush.

“Asra’s got a lil’ giiirlfriend.”

“Gosh, dad, you’re so embarrassing.”

“You can’t even hide it. Look at you! Turning redder than I did when I asked Aisha out. I guess you got that from me. I’m so proud.”

“Night, dad.”

“Aww, come on! It was just getting good.” He said. “What’s she like?”

“I’ve only spoken to her twice, but she seems really nice. Peaceful. Like I could fall asleep in her lap.”

“You know, most parents worry about their sons sleeping around with the wrong person, but you’re just sleeping like it’s going out of fashion.”

“Subverting narratives one nap at a time.”

He snorted. “Okay, you.”

He worked for a while, sketching and fine-tuning.

“So, what’s the plan for now?”

“Lafeyette’s has a vacancy, so I was thinking of applying?”

“Are you asking me if you should?”

“Yes.”

“You should. Definitely go for it. If that doesn’t work out, you can still work for us.”

“I was also talking with Nadia about it. You know Nadi, I mentioned her once or twice.”

“I remember.”

“Her parents are looking to secure an embassy here, and Nadi will be helping her other sister Natiqa with it.”

“Be careful with that. When friends get jobs for friends, that’s called nepotism.”

“But you just offered me a spot with you.”

“Hmm. I think I just backed myself into a corner.”

“Yeah, you did,” he stood, and pushed the stool under that table. “So, I’m not gonna drop out totally, I’ll just take classes online. Sounds good?”

“Sounds great, Cotton Tail. Sleep well.”

“You too, dad.”

He caught the bus to the apothecary, and committed the ride to heart. It was not a far distance from his house, a blessing when the commute had slowed down to a snail’s pace, and he could get out and walk the rest of the way.

The weather was favourable, not too hot, not cool cold, and a breeze flew in off the sea. There was a bounce to his footsteps, a lightness to his heart. He arrived at the door the same time Morgan was flipping the sign from closed to open.

A heat crept up his face, and pooled in his ears. _Damn it, dad. Of all the things you had to give me._

“Well, well.” She said. “The little fox has returned. For mischief perhaps?”

“Me? Never.”

“Right. Anyway, what can I do for you? Come back for a love reading?”

“No! Erm, no, I’m here to apply for the vacancy.”

“A pleasant surprise. But there’s been a teeny weeny bit of a change I’m afraid. My aunt Odette has to return home for a funeral, so I can’t hire temps anymore. This position has been on my mind lately, and I thought about making it happen.”

“What position is that?”

“Apprentice apothecary. It’s permanent, full-time. Weekends, but not bank holidays.” She said. “There will be some construction work going on, to erect a sliding, collapsible divider between the two shops, so whoever gets the job won’t be so overwhelmed.”

“How come?”

“Well, that’s how it used to be in the old days, but we had to take out the wood because it was infested with termites, and my aunty kinda liked the split. But she’s over it now. This place is a lot for one woman to manage. Besides next door has a manager and everything. One load off her shoulders.”

She clapped her hands, and whirled on him. “CV and cover letter?”

He dug into his messenger bag and removed the documents. Morgan drifted behind the counter, and hoisted herself up on the stool.

“You definitely have the degrees for it,” she said. “Now, believe it or not, I actually have a Diploma in Organic Skincare Formulation. I make the balms Navra bought when you were here. So with that being said, let’s pretend I’m a customer with eczema. It’s broken out on my arm. What would you suggest for me?”

He thought about it. Morgan was not going to hire him simple because they shared a class, or a few words over a deck of cards. She had a business to run first and foremost. Only the eligible would be considered.

“Depends on how severe. A flare up, or a small patch can be remedied with liquid chlorophyll taken internally every day for a month. But if it’s full body, I would recommend a trip to the doctor.”

“And if I tell you I’ve already been, but what they prescribe isn’t helping?”

“Then we continue with the chlorophyll, and gauge from there.”

“Mhmm,” she said. “Would you help me, dear apothecary? My son is teething, and all the articles on the internet give conflicting advice. What would you recommend?”

“A child safe teething ring, chilled, not frozen. And if they’re chewing, at 6 months or older, hard fruit like apples. Also, rubbing their gums with a clean finger helps.”

“I see,” she said. “Now, my crotch itches, and it burns when I pee—”

“Please go to a doctor.”

She snorted. “Yes, that is the right response. You look horrified!”

“I am!” he shuddered.

“Well, that’s the general crowd around here. People can’t afford insurance or the doctor, so I try to mediate to a degree. But like I told you, honey can’t cure streptococcus.” Morgan returned his CV and cover letter. “So, what’s going on with school? I hope you aren’t being a delinquent like me.”

“No, I transferred to the online classes.”

“Oh, neat! I should have thought about that.”

“You can still get in. Enrolment’s not done.”

“I have another diploma to get this time. An Advanced Diploma in Organic Cosmetic Science. I hope to have my own skincare brand one day, but I also want to have an active part in the formulation process.”

“That’s good. I guess one thing at a time, hmm?”

“Brick by brick. When can you start?”

“I… wot?”

“When can you start, Asra?”

“Today! I mean, I’m free today, and ideally would like to have a run of the place.” He said. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful, but how come you hired me?”

“Do you think people are lining up to become an apothecary’s apprentice? In 2019? No, everyone wants to make the big bucks, and I say kudos to them. Anyway, why do you want to be my apprentice? Is it because I’m terrifyingly gorgeous and you couldn’t get enough of me?”

“Yes.”

“Erm, I beg your pardon?”

Asra said it with a straight face, but soon she was laughing.

“Oh, you’re just having me on! You’re funny, Asra Alnazar, Positively knee-slapping.” She dried her eyes. “Anyhoo, this is the entirety of Layfette’s. As you know, next door is the health supply and supplement store and the eco-café and juice bar. Sometimes you will need something that’s next door, but all the stock is in the back room.”

“Got it.”

“Now, I cater to a lot of religious people as well, because all religions and spiritual practices burn incense, so you’ll get a mix of people in here; witches, and priests alike. If anyone asks for white sage, tell them straight, it’s endangered and we don’t sell it. The priest from down the road comes here to get his for the _thurible_ they use during mass. He’s nice, doesn’t judge, and he won’t break out the holy water if a goth girl walks in.”

“Has that happened?”

“So my aunt tells me.” She moved to the other counter. “There is a form here for people to request things they want, and I’ll go over the suggestions and might start importing something on the list.”

“And the back room? Oh. Oh no, what is that smile for?”

“I’m so glad you asked, puppy.”

“Ooooh no. You can’t… you can’t be serious!”

“Deadly serious. I’ll teach you how to read the cards! Yay!” She said. “Not a game anymore, is it?”

“I think you do too much here.”

“That’s why I have you now. With the two of us, we can get the job done, one tea bag at a time. Say, would you fancy some tea?”

“I could do with it, yes.”

“Some days you’ll be extra busy, and other days will be slow. Mostly, we get our income from the eco-café. If this place wasn’t a World Heritage site, and therefore protected, we might have gone under a long time ago. Oh! If you want lunch, feel free to get something with your employee’s discount.”

She steered him towards a gate at the back, but not before asking the waitress next door to just keep an eye out if anyone comes.

“Good. Now this gate protects the stairs leading up to my apartment. I live above the store, you see, and this is the only way in. If you need someplace to eat during lunch, you can eat upstairs. I’m going on good faith here, but since I know where you live, and who your parents are, I’m sure you won’t do anything stupid,” she said, darker than black. It was a threat and she made no attempt to hide it.

He ascended the stairs and entered her private space. Like his it was adorned in fabrics and colourful rugs. A pair of cockatiels sang in their cages.

“This is Ashe, and this is Grey. Please do not touch them.”

“I won’t. I have a pet snake Faust, so they might smell her on me.”

She was half mortified, half intrigued. “I only say that because Grey bites, and she will honk at you, which is her version of a laugh. Feel free to look, though.”

She laid her hand on his collar, and stared directed into his eyes. A malevolence swirled in her brown eyes, winged in kohl.

“If you hurt them, I will torment you and your future generations, and they will all know such pain and hardship that it will come as naturally to them as breathing. There will be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I’ll be the consequences you will face for your transgression every single day of your life. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Oh goodie!” She said. “Let’s have some tea to celebrate.”

Asra considered that Morgan was a flower. A deadly nightshade never to touch, but only to admire from far. Very far.

But he wasn’t one to shun beautiful things. If he died, he died. _It just be like that sometimes._


	4. Chapter 4

He met all sorts of people in the apothecary, and he couldn’t think of a place that had been more accepting than Layfette’s.

“Everyone’s money is good,” said Morgan.

He didn’t believe she was only in it for the money.

The door flung open, and a man in a tailored suit stormed in, slammed his hands on the counter and stared Morgan in the face. She was already bored to tears.

“Good morning, Valerius.”

“Where is it? I saw the message.”

“Asra, could you be a dear, and get the crate from the back? Before Valerius has a seizure.”

“Sure thing,” he said, and found the box where she told him it would be earlier that morning, as she had expected Valerius, and dreaded his arrival all the same. He was a ‘snooty alcoholic’, she had said, but he paid top dollar for the rarest wines. The older, the better. These bottles were coated in dust, evidence they had been sitting in a cellar for longer than Asra had been alive.

“Here you are,” she said.

Valerius made soft noises at the sight of them, savouring the dust, and the cobwebs still attached with two or three spiders in denial about their homes being destroyed.

He slapped the money on the table, an obscene wad, and cradled the crate and was gone.

“Well, I’ve seen it all.”

“No, you haven’t puppy.”

Asra propped his hand on his chin. “You keep calling me that.”

“It is subject to change.”

“No, no I like it. Don’t stop.”

“You’re bad for my health, I swear,” she said. “Anyway, that’s my cue to disappear into the back and deal with the stocktaking. We’ll go over the cards later.”

“Yes ma’am!” He saluted.

She eyed him wearily. Morgan was peaked today, pale and looked as if she had been put through the paces. He couldn’t understand why that was. It had been one of those slow days she promised, and she had mostly shined the counter tops, and swept the floor, while he restocked the dried lavender drawer.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

He didn’t believe her. Not when it became more and more apparent that she was grooming him to take over. Everything she knew, she said she intended to teach him. Morgan introduced him to everyone who passed through, customers and delivery guys, food couriers and mailmen as well.

She was unforgiving when he missed a step to making the balm, or when he confused ingredients. Then she’d apologize with a look of absolute exhaustion on her face, and retire for the day, and leave him to finish any transactions, and to close shop.

Sometimes she needed help with small tasks, lifting boxes a child could handle, or getting up to put water in Ashe and Grey’s cage. Morgan was declining faster than he could blink. And though it had barely been a month, he wasn’t ready to lose her.

_Silly, isn’t it?_

The door-chimes jingled delicately, the sun cast a glare of red. Asra was about to lose what was left of his mind.

“Hello world!” said Julian.

“What the fuck?”

Asra pulled in the door to the back room, and seethed at Julian’s sudden appearance. Or Ilya, whatever the hell he was calling himself these days.

“What are you doing here?”

“Me? I hadn’t a clue you’d be here, but I decided to stop by and get some of that deathly brew I’ve heard so much about. Sounds like my kind of poison.”

He grinned, and Asra simmered.

“Coffee. You left your job at the hospital to come here for a bag of coffee.”

“Not just any coffee! Fermented coffee. I have transcended the realms beyond which the normal decaf can no longer sustain me, and alas, I need my fix. Full decaf! No holds barred! Fix a guy up, would ya?”

He placed the bag on the counter. “$62.50 for a two pound bag.”

“Excellent! That will keep me going for an hour. Two, tops.”

“Great,” he slid the change across the counter. Julian laid his hand on his.

“I haven’t seen you in a year.”

“Thank god.”

“You mean to say you regret what happened? That our night—”

“Wow, would you look at the time! I’ve got to go and sacrifice some goats. Thanks for visiting Lafayette’s and have a nice day.”

“Asra, you can’t run from this. From us.”

“Ilya, I’m not running from anything. We agreed to keep it business, but _you _caught feelings. Don’t blame me for not being in the same position.”

A series of thuds like boxes falling, Asra bolted into the back room. Nothing should be making such a noise.

“Morgan?” He said. He had to navigate around boxes piled high, and shelves brimming with dried ingredients and fragile things in jars. She was on the floor, unconscious.

“Morgan?” He shook her. “Hey, hey wake up!”

Icy to the touch, but still alive. Barely. Asra considered his hand to play; Ilya was there, but his help never came for free. He’d hold it over both their heads for as long as he could.

On the other hand he was a doctor, and fortunately a proficient one. Asra could deal with the consequences, but only after he knew Morgan was all right.

“Ilya. Ilya, come here quick!”

Footsteps sounded, loud and sharp. His leather pants squeaked as he bent a knee on the other side of Morgan.

“Call an ambulance. She’s not responding.”

The phone was already up to his ear, relaying information to the dispatcher. It was a whirlwind after that. Of getting Morgan into the ambulance in time to save her life. Of explaining to the other half of Lafayette’s that he needed to shut the shop and be with her.

He said it was out of a sense of duty, but duty did not make someone worry so intently. Asra had fallen for Morgan, for her dark aesthetic and her chirping cockatiels. For her knowledge in all things he could think of. It did not take much to care for Morgan, but it would take a world to forget her.

Asra kept his snide comments and cryptic words to himself and let Julian do what he was supposed to do. That left him in a waiting room, wondering what could make a woman in her early twenties pass old cold.

“Kidney failure.”

“What?”

“Your friend is suffering from acute kidney failure, and lo and behold, she’s on the donor’s list. Has been for a while.”

“But, how?”

“Something called crush syndrome,” he said. “Basically it’s a major injury dealt to skeletal muscles. And I’m seeing on her records that she was admitted to hospital about ten years prior after a car accident that claimed her parents’ lives.”

_That's why she’s with her aunt. _He massaged his forehead, and the pressure building there. “God, I’m so stupid,” he said. “Well, there must be something, right? Is a transplant an option?”

Julian pressed his hands together. “Do you know how many people are waiting for a kidney transplant as of this minute? Ninety four thousand, nine hundred and sixty three. She is nowhere at the top, Asra.”

“So what are you saying? That I should just let her die?”

“No, I’m saying contact what family she has left, and let them decide.” He said, and got to his feet. “She’s stable for now, but I don’t advise that you bother her.”

“I won’t. I’ll just try to get in contact with her aunt.”

He nodded. “I on the other hand have to deal with one of the worst patients I’ve ever had the sheer displeasure to cross. He makes me want to quit, sometimes.”

Asra asked to borrow the phone at the front desk, and dialled the number he had for Odette. It rang and rang, until she answered on the third try. He told her everything he could, and starting from the day he began working with her when she asked. Odette did not agree to Morgan hiring an apprentice. No, she hadn’t even known she was going to do that in the first place. Lafayette’s was supposed to be closed, and Morgan resting. Odette hadn’t planned to be gone for so long.

“I will catch the first flight I can. Will you stay with her?”

“I will.”

“Thank you. Asra, was it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Don’t let the doctors do anything until I get there, unless it’s crucial to her survival.”

“At this point she really needs a kidney, but the list is long, too long.”

His hand unconsciously rested on his sternum, clawing at the fabric of his black shirt with Lafayette’s logo embroidered over his heart. Asra hung up, and returned to the waiting room, where he found his parents.

“Oh thank god,” said Aisha. “When I heard there was an ambulance in front of your workplace, I thought the worse. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “It’s Morgan. She’s fatally ill.”

“How?”

“Kidney failure. And there are no kidneys to give.”

“No family?”

“Just Odette, but she’s three thousand miles away.”

“Oh, the poor girl.”

“Well, I’ve got two.”

“Asra, no.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I’ve been thinking about this since the doctor told me, and Morgan doesn’t have another day. We’re the same blood type—”

“Asra,” said his father. “You know you cannot donate your kidneys. They won’t allow you to.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not… exactly, completely straight. You were with Julian for a time. That’s enough not to have you considered as an option.”

“We’ll have to wait until Odette comes for her to make the decision, since Morgan cannot.”

“That’s a bullshit rule. She’s dying, and I’m healthy. There is nothing wrong with me.”

He went back to the receptionist’s desk, and asked her to page for another doctor. Someone besides Julian. There was his mentor, Nadia’s sibling Nazali who worked alongside many of the doctors in the hospital when they visited.

Nazali came, unaware of the power they held over Asra, and Morgan’s fragile life.

“Oh, hello again,” they said. “Asra, right? Did you page for me?”

“Yes, could I talk with you about something urgent? I mean, it’s really, really urgent.”

“Of course, have a seat.”

He waited until they were in the chair before he started.

“My friend Morgan was recently brought in for acute kidney failure, and she’s in dire straits. Her aunt, her only living family, is three thousand miles away, and Morgan cannot wait for a donor the conventional way, but I’m here. I’m willing. Why can’t I help?”

They rubbed their chin. “You are saying that you’re gay.”

“I was with a guy once, and yes we were involved. I’ve been with men and women, but why does that matter?”

“I don’t make the rules, Asra, and unfortunately the ban against MSM donating has existed long before I was alive. Mostly on the premise of HIV/AIDS concerns. I cannot make a special exemption, unless the aunt permits it, and you yourself are in fine health.”

“And Morgan?”

“She will be added to the donors list. I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t fair. I’m not diseased!”

“No one is saying you are.”

“Yes, you are. That is exactly what you’re saying.”

His one hope had fizzled out, killed by some archaic law. Asra paced a hole into the floor, arms folded, and fuming.

“Asra, you are going to burn yourself out.”

“I’m fine.”

Aisha fell silent, looking to Salim in that way of hers when she was concerned. The hours waned until his parents hugged him goodbye to head home. They had a meeting with the team about the prosthetic for this unnamed man.

The Tower flashed to mind; an upheaval. He thought it was going to affect him, and him alone. Asra’s blood quickened, pulse racing in his ears. Is this what the card meant? That his rebirth would come at the cost of someone else’s life?

He tugged on his hair, and continued to pace.

“Asra?”

He whirled around. “What? Is it Morgan?”

“No, she’s on dialysis,” said Julian. “What’s going on with you? You been pacing for hours almost.”

“I have two working kidneys and the hospital wants neither of them. Yet, they’re begging for donors.”

“Yes, the deferrals. It’s permanent here, thanks to Vesuvia’s past Counts and current heads of government.” He said. “I’ve actually got one of those hoity toity types now trying to bribe his way up the donor list, because he also needs a kidney. Like, yesterday.”

“And he’s before her? Who the hell is he to cheat the line?”

“Lucio Morgasson. He’s been bragging about getting a prosthetic too. Not from your parents, I hope.”

Cracks in the Tower started to appear. He knew that name from Nadia. Lucio, an ex-military type, high-class trash, she said. He had been ‘honourably discharged’ after losing an arm, which his parents were commissioned to replace. And now he was trying to bribe his way up the donor list?

_Is he out of his ever loving mind?_

“And where is this guy?”

“As if I can tell you—he’s in the dialysis ward on the floor up,” he said, a scissors pressed to his throat. He lowered the scissors, but continued to keep it by his side.

“Asra, seriously. Why are you doing this for someone you barely know? If you were not attracted to Morgan, would you be fighting to get her a kidney?”

He opened his mouth to say that of course he would. But that reply died before it had had a chance. How often did strangers give of themselves to save another person’s life? People could go through life without a spleen, or half a liver, or with one lung or kidney, but how many would be content with half when they could keep the whole?

These were all strangers in the hospital, and some had family. Did those family members offer?

“Before you ask Lucio about why he’s trying to get up on the list, stop at the kids’ ward where Nazali works, and look at all the kids waiting for something. A bit of the right type of blood, an organ, or marrow.” He said. “I mean, they were just born, but they’re already dying. At least consider them for two seconds, if you can manage it. You know you and your selfishness, that ugly thing you hide behind a pretty face leaves little room for anything else.”

He followed the hospital map to the dialysis ward on the upper floor. The children’s unit was down the hall in the opposite direction, but there were kids rolling around on plastic tricycles. A red ball bounced and hit his leg, and the tiniest girl he’d ever seen chased it. She barely reach mid-thigh, and walked with her IV drip, and an oxygen concentrator hidden in a ladybug backpack. Her sickness had stunted her growth, and had claimed her childhood as it had for the others. She didn’t have the strength to both play with the ball, and move her IV stand.

He rolled it to her, and she managed a smile, wide and endearing, it clutched at his heart. She rolled it back, and he returned it, and they did this for a while, her smile growing larger and larger, until she had had a coughing fit, and the nurses needed to get her to bed to rest.

She waved good bye with her tiny hands. Asra was left with the ball, and the slight notion that perhaps he deserved to crumble.

He had accused Julian of many things; of being clingy, and touch-starved, a dog for affection. It was obvious looking back that it was all a product of his childhood; an absent father, and a sick mother who had eventually died, which prompted him to become a doctor in the first place, and the guilt of a resentful sister he had left behind to mourn and bury their mother alone.

Asra had everything. Parents, alive and well, who supported his aimless endeavours, and his sloth. They didn’t push him, didn’t hold him to any standard. They wanted him to be someone of his own design. Asra was simply uncertain of when he had made himself to such a fiend.

He played Julian, counted on his cravings for affection to stomp on him as he wished. And he had chosen Morgan because of how he felt for her, never mind if she saw him as just an apprentice.

On this sole occasion, Julian was right; he had a vested interest in Morgan. Call it for what it was, pure selfishness, he wouldn’t deny it any longer.

Asra looked into the dialysis room where a man was in his chair, talking to the top of his lungs, and sloshing a glass of wine. Wine that Valerius was pouring into the Bordeaux glass. The same vintage year he had bought from Morgan this morning. _Should he be drinking that?_

This Lucio was long and pale, with a receding hairline and features like a ferret. His empty sleeve was rolled up and pinned.

Neither man noticed Asra by the window. He put the scissors in his pocket, but felt something else. Like a piece of card stock.

He groaned, and removed one of Morgan’s tarot card from his pocket, face down. _I swear to god, if this is the Tower again. _

It wasn’t. In fact, he preferred the Tower after he flipped it other.

A sharp intake of breath, Asra’s world went reeling.

_The Devil._

“Ohhh, boy,” he said, and looked back at Lucio, who was staring him dead in the eye. He raised his glass as if he were the Great Gatsby, just as Valerius drew the curtains.

He didn’t ask how the card got into his pocket. The Devil was pride, and envy, and sloth, and greed, and wrath and lust rolled into one nasty card. It was Asra’s dark side, and his unconscious. All the things he wanted to do, to be, if morals and human decency weren’t an issue.

So then, considering how Asra had acted, was the card for him, or for Lucio?

He slipped the card back into his pocket, and made for somewhere else.


	5. Chapter 5

Odette would not arrive for a week, two at worst. Still, he kept her abreast about the situation, calling her everyday as she requested. Morgan was all Odette had, and vice versa was true. It would seem as if Odette had unveiled the Tower card herself, as her family was dying off; her half-brother’s sister had died by means Odette would not divulge, and now her niece was fighting for her life, on the last legs of her friable kidneys,

In the meantime, he returned to Lafayette’s and fed Asher and Grey. They chirped almost glad to see him, but he wouldn’t trust it. Though Asher was a quiet bird, Grey was a certifiable pain in the ass. And she knew it.

He let them come to him, and perch on the end of his finger. Grey honked as was her way, and explored life outside the cage, mostly interested in his hair, while Asher was content to dance in circles on the kitchen island. Asra left a bowl of water on top of a sham-cloth for them to bathe, and frolic for several hours before they’d had to return to the cage.

“Yes, Grey,” he said. She was looking at him in that tone of hers. “Your mum is sick.”

_Mumther?_

There was a moment for him to compute. An infinitesimal tick of maximum brainpower.

“Oh god!” He said, backing up to the fridge.

Grey continued to honk as if nothing had happened.

“Did you just… did you just talk to me?”

She titled her head this way and that, her crest rising, claws tapping on the granite.

“That’s what I thought. I’m hearing things.”

_Hearing things!_

Asra cleared the room in five seconds, going zero to sixty like a high performance Lamborghini. He stumbled over his own feet, heart racing. He landed at the bottom, and made sure there were at least three rooms between him and Grey.

Like the footsteps of a killer of Friday the 13th, Grey hopped down the steps, chirping and honking. She walked around on her little bird feet as if nothing had happened, and all was right with the world. Asra had run out of ground to cover, and had climbed onto the counter.

_Fool! _

“What the hell are you? Wh-why are you talking to me? How can you talk, you’re a cockatiel!”

_Fool! _And she continued to dance in her weird circles.

“Okay, okay, let me get this straight. You, all five inches of you not including the tail, can talk to me through my mind, because you haven’t opened your mouth yet. Beak? I don’t know.”

Grey mocked him with her innocence.

_You learn. You grow. Your lost sight returns!_

“My lost sight? Like, my third eye?”

She flew across the room to the small communal area near the tarot table where he had thrown some pillows into a corner and called it his napping spot. Two bookcases were placed ninety degrees to each other, and held a sample of the books Odette owned. Everything from the Khemet Book of the Dead, to the origins of Santeria, and the history of lost Orisha. Grey pecked an ornate tome with gold decorations.

“You want me to read this?”

She flew at him, and settled on his shoulder, and walked to the other side.

“Do I need strong alcohol with this or no? Because I mean, this is getting ridiculous now.

_Nothing new under the sun._

“No, instead everything’s weird under the sun, and birds are taking to me,” he said. “Oh god. I’ve got magical hair, and talk to birds. I’m a Disney princess.”

Grey nibbled his ear. _Fool!_

“Okay! Reading the book now,” he said, and plucked her off his shoulder. “No one nibbles my ear without a follow through, birdie. No one.”

He reclined on the pillows, and opened to the first page.

“‘Familiars are often described in folklore and the folk-belief during the Medieval and Early Modern periods as supernatural entities to assist witches and practitioners of magic.’”

He became lost in the book, in the instances of familiars, their presence and their existence alongside mankind as they slowly lost their touch with the immaterial, to cling to and hoard the material. To become a worldly being, and reject the otherworldly. Page by page, he understood how familiars changed with the times as magic died off, and third eyes went blind, and six senses were reduced to five. He read that bonds between person and animal were so minute, so subtle, that no one would second guess it, like the cat lady down the street, or the odd boy who had a way with centipedes.

Or with snakes.

The book said familiars sometimes protected entire dynasties, and family bloodlines. Like the dog your father bought as a puppy which in turn took care of you, and then any children you had before passing on, only for your child to feel a compulsion to have a certain kind of dog, as if your faithful old dog had returned to see you again.

Asra only stopped when the front door opened. He got to his feet.

“Oh, hello,” said a woman who looked a little like Morgan. “Asra, right?”

“Yes ma’am. You got here safely.”

“Yes, I didn’t sleep on any of the transfers,” she said. “Is Grey being good to you? And don’t lie, she’s such a tenacious and bratty chick.”

“She picks on me.”

“Sounds like her. And now she’s gotten you to read the book about familiars? I suppose she spoke to you?”

“She called me a fool.”

“Yes, that’s her favourite word. From some anime, I reckon.”

Odette placed her luggage by the steps to later be dealt with. She rubbed her back, and shucked off her shoes by threshold.

“Tell me something, Asra. Were you really going to give up a kidney?”

“Yes. A person only needs one single healthy kidney to live.”

“If you’re still serious about it, I will sign all the documentation. I can’t lose Morgan too. Not so soon after my sister, and her husband, and now my sister-in-law. She’s all I got. But I have to know, what do you want out of this?”

He wasn’t about to tell Odette that, on a base level, he was inspired by how she made him feel. In his man bits. That’s all physical attraction was, wasn’t it? A superficial magnetism to the exterior, without considering the person’s character or their values, what they cherished or any part of their personality, the parts he couldn’t see. Morgan had a lovely face, and he wanted to smooch it, but he hadn’t known her long enough to establish a deeper connection.

He would not make a repeat of kissing first, and getting to know the person later.

“I see,” she said, reading his sins on her face. Lust was like a lady in a red sequined dress, all lights on her, all eyes as well.

“What would happen if Morgan didn’t feel the same way? You’re supposed to donate without making the other person beholden to you.”

“I know, I know. I’ve had to rethink my first compulsions, and try a different approach. I don’t want her to die, but she might feel indebted to me if she knows it came from me. And that’s no basis for any kind of relationship, friend or whatever else. She can still have my kidney with my blessing. I also have a piece of liver to give a little girl, but that’sneitherherenorthere.”

“And if I refuse to tell her it was you?”

“Feel free, by all means. But that won’t matter if she doesn’t make it.” he said. “I just want my boss back. No charge, no debt.”

Odette nodded, and whistled to Grey, and Asher, and they landed on a shoulder each.

“Asra, I will need help taking care of her and Lafayette’s, because we’ll need that money for her later on. Can I count on you to assist?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, you are,” she said. “Where do you live? Is it far?”

“About a five minute bus ride, which is roughly a fifteen to twenty minute walk.”

“And you would be opposed to moving in?”

His brows flew to his hairline. “Live here? With you and Morgan?”

“Feel free to say no.”

“No! No, I mean not no. I’d love to erase the commute, and help out more around here.”

“Good, I’ll secure you a room. Allow me to show you around while I catch my breath, before we head out again. Lord, it’s so hot outside.”

They went back up the stairs with her in the lead, and Grey squinting at him. The words fool, fool echoed.

He stuck out his tongue. “You aren’t half as scary as you think you are, Grey.”

“This is obviously the kitchen, but if you follow me over here, you’ll find what is keeping Lafayette’s alive.”

She opened what he had assumed was a pantry, but instead was a room for a generator, or something of that nature.

_Or not of that nature at all._

A blue flame burned in a brazier, and nothing else was around it. Yet, this brazier had handles, and notches in the floor as if it was supposed to move.

“Right, let’s make some changes so that it will be easier for her when she comes home. Asra, grab that handle there. Thank you. You push, I pull.”

“All right.”

He put in the effort to move the brazier along the north axis. The floor spun like a CD disk in a player, and Odette motioned for him to slide it in an arc from north to east. They returned to centre, and moved west, sliding in an arc to the south. Finally, they returned to centre.

“After you,” she said.

He went without question. But the room had changed. No, it had been replaced altogether.

The kitchen was larger, grander, with more counter space and hooks for potted herbs. There was space to move now.

He looked at Odette to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

“Layfette is alive,” she said. “One of the first witches to live in Vesuvia, but who was burned alive during the trials. Her sisters kept her soul alive in this house which used to be hers. That blue flame is her soul.”

“My brain can only handle so much, Odette. First a talking bird, now a self-renovating house. I have a headache.”

“Your room is the first door on the left,” she squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s go. Visiting hours fast approach.”

He awoke feeling worse than he had in an age, as if someone had corrupted his naps, and drained them of everything he held dear.

Morgan had her kidney, and little Leila with the red ball was going to have a great liver. Everything was good. Great even.

_Then why am I feeling a draft?_

Asra checked his gown as he stood, and the gap at the back door. _Hello. _He shrugged on a plush robe Nadia had brought him, as his mother didn’t know he had subjected himself to x hours of surgery. Twice, over the course of weeks, with recovery in between.

“Asra, you should be resting,” said Nadia with a vase of flowers.

“I’m okay, Nadi, I need to walk around.” He said, pushing his IV stand. “I was just about to see how Leila’s doing. Care to join me?”

“Of course. She has taken quite a shine to you.”

“I’m a soft and fluffy creature. Apparently.”

Nadia was resplendent in her Burberry, whereas he felt like a clump of grass a cow with seven stomachs had digested and passed out. In other words, like shit, but more eloquently said.

“Nadi, I don’t mean to be a cow patty, but why didn’t you tell me about Lucio? He’s in this hospital you know, trying to steal a kidney.”

“Yes, when he lost his arm his own were damaged.” She said. “He has many health problems, and if he could trade in this old body for a new one he would.”

“He’d steal that too. And! And he’d try to bribe the doctors into letting him get first pick.”

“Well, that is certainly within his realm of possible actions. Lucio has little honour, and even fewer redeemable qualities.”

“But I take it he was an excellent liar, right?”

“No, he showed me the monster he was from the start. However I was foolish and brash, and wanted to make a point to my family. I suppose I did, though not the way I had planned.” She said. “It is hard being the seventh sister. I am buried under my sisters’ accomplishments, their trophies and their Facebook likes. This was the one chance I had to stand out and I failed miserably, Asra. Now, all I get from my sisters is pity, and ‘well-meaning advice’ about men. They lure me out with a promise of just a girls’ night on the town, then I find they have brought someone along as my date, and then they abscond, for me to ‘hit it off’ with a complete stranger.”

They stepped out of the elevator, and beheld unmitigated bedlam. The dialysis unit was on fire, and nurses and doctors alike were trying to extinguish the contained blaze.

“Well,” said Asra. “That’s new.”

“Please, get back,” said an orderly. Asra retreated down the hall with Nadia, eyes glued to the scene.

“Nadi, that’s Valerius.”

She was stricken. Valerius only went where Lucio was, following him like a drunken shadow.

Someone had tugged at his gown. Little Leila made grabby hands for him to pick her up. He waited for permission from the nurse.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

He wheezed. “My heart.”

“Asra, Lucio is currently burning alive!”

“My condolences?”

She was torn, but rushed into the fray. Asra stayed behind with his IV stand, and Leila, who was mussing up his tragic hair.

“How are you feeling today?”

“Better.”

“Good, good, I’m glad,” he set her on the ground, back creaking. _God, this getting old thing is so stupid. I’m over it._

“You should hide in the playroom with the others, and stay close to the nurses, okay?”

“Okay.”

He watched her toddle off to the care of her nurse who waved and ushered all the recovering children into a room. It was only smoke now, and a charred body in a black bag. Nadia clung to an orderly, the sight of her ex driving a weakness into her that didn’t quite belong.

Nadia had become like rubber, and fainted. Nurses rushed to her side, and Asra’s IV wheel squeaked.

“Nadia!” He said. It was as if everyone he cared about was dropping like flies, and trying to leave this mortal rat race.

She was stronger than this, wasn’t she? She couldn’t have loved this selfish, immoral, egotistical sack of trash. Could she?

Maybe it was the sight of him burnt to ashes that had done her in. Yes, Asra would cling to that.

Just as he had called Odette for Morgan, he had to call Navra for Nadia, and relay the news two-fold. But he didn’t get through. He instead called Nadia’s assistant Portia.

She was beside herself, firing off questions and her statements of immense worry and panic at rapid fire. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“You hang on! I’ll be right over!”

And Portia did indeed hurry across Vesuvia on her little Vespa, surpassing the speeding limit if her timed arrival was any indication. He had no doubt that she would fight the police, and lead them all on a high speed chase of a lifetime.

Portia charged in, woe betide patients in her way. She was all fire, red hair, and red cheeks, softened only by watery blue eyes.

She huffed, and puffed, and fanned her face. She braced herself for the news he hadn’t given over the line. _Couldn’t give._

“Okay! Give it to me straight! I can handle it!”

“She fainted.”

Her tears were large and crystal clear. “Oh no, not Nadia! She never faints, not even when we watch WWE!”

_Probably because that’s all fake, and Lucio’s death wasn’t._

Portia wrung her hands, and questioned the nurses to the nth degree. Asra had a moment to himself, a chance to watch the authorities descend on the crime scene.

Lucio was a man with many enemies, said Valerius. Anyone could have wanted him dead, even the doctors who had taken the oath to heal, not hurt. By the time the investigator was finished, his notebook page was covered back and front with possible suspects.

_Snitch._

They cordoned off the area, but Asra had a good view from where he stood. The chair Lucio had sat in was untouched, dialysis machined thankfully undamaged, and could be brushed off, and used for another patient. The only thing that had burned was Lucio, with prophetic quality.

A strange wind brushed the hem of Asra’s robe, and he thought it was Leila playing. There was nothing but the deck in Asra’s pocket.

He was almost used to it by now. Talking birds, teleporting decks, living houses, and wretched men spontaneously combusting. The last one wasn’t so horrid.

But the cards felt like the warm hand of a friend holding his, and he shuffled through the complete deck, and tried to see what they wanted.

Asra had learned that the world was not black and white. It did not exist in a binary of either or; there were grey areas, shades his eyes couldn’t even see. But he was more open now, attuned to the immaterial, and the things his old friend science couldn’t explain.

The first card was Death, a transformation, a transfiguration, a leap from a beginning to a new beginning.

“Hmm,” he said, and walked to the waiting room for a seat as the investigation continued. He wanted to draw on the energies still trapped. Lucio didn’t seem like the sort to pass on to the afterlife peacefully.

The next card, the Magician reversed. Manipulation and poor planning. _Yeah, that’s Lucio. But poor planning with what?_

The Tower upright. Asra scowled at this card, and it scowled back.

“You just thrive on giving me high blood pressure, don’t you?”

The card said yes.

He held it up to the light, and scrutinized it. Why was Lucio worthy of the Tower? It should not come up in a reading for someone who was dead. After all, what other upheaval could he have besides his death? _That’s a pretty significant upheaval if you ask me._

The card was not asking him.

“Rude.”

Next, the Six of Swords reversed, a resistance to change and unfinished business. He had his three card draw, but he hadn’t gotten a hold of the cards’ cryptic double speech.

He shuffled them neatly, but a card slipped out, and fluttered to the ground.

“That better not be what I think it is!”

No, the Tower card was still in the deck.

He picked up the stray. _The Magician._

Asra exhaled. He might have said it before, but he was tired of the Tower, and it of him.

The Magician spoke to him in a garbled mess. He needed a clear mind to hear its message. Asra returned to his room, closed the door and sat cross legged on the bed, the Magician card in hand. The voices came as soon as he closed his eyes.

_This is not your deck, _it said. _We speak to the rhythm of Morgan’s drums. We speak in the way she understands, to the beat of her heart. If you want to be able to hear us, you need to understand us at our core; you must know everything that goes into a deck: the card stock, the paints, the cleansing Palo Santo smoke that blesses us. We shall not speak to you again, until you understand us at a fundamental level._

And the Magician withdrew. All the cards had fallen silent as if they were merely props.

Odette would have everything he’d require. He was going to be released later in the day. He would head to Lafayette’s and start moving in.

_Oh yes, Lafayette’s. The living house._

On second thought, he’d catch a nap first and deal with everything else later.


	6. Chapter 6

Asra put the last of his boxes in his room, and Salim fitted Faust’s tank on a stand near a window. The room Lafayette had added was everything he could want; it had east and south facing windows for wind, and the gentle sunlight as it rose over Vesuvia. He had shelves and a closet, and an alcove he could stuff with more pillows.

“I must say, this is quite nice,” said Salim.

“Isn’t it?” He said. “Mom, dad, I couldn’t have gotten here without you.”

“Don’t be silly, Cotton Tail. You’re all grown now. You’ve got to be making your own moves in the world, even though I will miss you a bit. Got to let you go at some point.”

“I’m literally five minutes away.”

She cupped his face, and squeezed his cheeks together. “Don’t be smart with your mother, Asra.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Faust moved around in his hoodie pocket. He had stored her there while her house was being moved, and she had gotten comfortable, drawing on his heat to thermo-regulate.

“How’s uh, how’s the investigation going?”

Salim scratched his head, and the creases in Aisha’s face deepened. He hated seeing his parents so stressed, so worried about almost losing everything to Lucio’s spontaneous death. Had it not been for the security footage of the hospital corridor, their alibis and the fact Salim and Aisha hadn’t even met Lucio in person yet, they would be having a very different conversation. Through bars or a pane of reinforced glass.

“One of the doctors who treated him is on the run. Valerius, Lucio’s friend, claims he did it,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it, though I’m glad we’re in the clear.”

“It would seem that feeling you had was right on the money, Asra.”

“I’m just glad you two are okay.” He said. “What now?”

“Now, we clean up our share of this mess, what the investigators mussed up, and put our energy to better use,” said Aisha. “We were thinking of building prosthetics for the people in the hospital. The children too. It will be a much better endeavour than arming Lucio. I’ve heard some things about him that makes my skin crawl.”

“And the fact he wasn’t honourably discharged is an insult to the vets who were on a waiting list.”

“Hmm. He bribed his way up that list too? Gee, a surprise.”

He hugged and kissed his parents ‘see you later’ and not goodbye. They never said goodbye in their family, though Asra didn’t know when the custom had started.

Asra walked them to their car, and watched them disappeared. With his hands on his hips, he heaved an exhale.

“Well Faust, here's to a new chapter of our lives, yes? Starting with your tank.”

He returned to his room and began cleaning her habitat, and added new substrate, different hides, and interesting things for her to explore.

_Shiny thing, too!_

“Right, right, your shiny crystal,” he said. “Hang on. Not you too!”

_Hear me! _her pink tongue waggled.

“Have you been trying to speak to me all this time? Since when? Since you hatched?”

_Yes._

She coiled around his arm, and he looked her in the eyes. Faust yawned, but pepped up, cheery and ready for a day of adventure.

“So, this is your new home. What do you think of it?”

A snake sniff here, a nose boop there, Faust critiqued the space.

_Like it!_

“Me too. Morgan’s coming home today, and the doctors are confident she’ll get better, so you and I will be working downstairs, raking in that money for her future medical follow-ups.” He said. “I have a brand new cushion for you, soft velvet and tassels. You’ll be my eyes when my back is turned, right?”

_Right!_

“Son of a bitch.”

Asra headed to the top of the stairs. He sat on the step, and observed from afar. A car door slammed, and the bell above the door jingled. He could hardly sit still waiting for her to step into the light where he could see her, healthy and whole.

“Morgan, wait for me. You are so stubborn, child.”

“Move your bones old woman. I’ve got realms to conquer!”

“You’ll conquer realms when I say so. Who do you think you are telling me what to do? I’ll leave you on the steps of a church, so help me.”

“LOL, okay aunty. You’re so cute though.”

“Insufferably brat.”

Morgan climbed the stairs at her own pace, and Asra’s world was back in focus. It had been a strange two months without her dark aesthetic to combat his vibrant desert themes.

“Hello puppy,” she ruffled his hair. “Oh! Who does that cute snoot belong to?”

_Am Faust!_

“Pleased to meet you, Faust,” she gave her chin scritches, and Faust was inexplicably pleased. Asra felt like he was intruding.

“What a gorgeous morph,” she said. “Have you had her long?”

“Since she hatched. She is the child of my parents’ snakes, Chimes and Flamel.”

“Only one egg? Hmm, your family is protected by the snake familiar. The symbol of knowledge, and cunning. And smugness.”

“Hey. I’ll have you know it’s humble smugness.”

“There’s no such thing, puppy.”

Morgan stretched, and twisted, working out the kinks of being bed-bound for so long.

“You should rest.”

“I’ll rest when I have to visit my gate. Which, now that I think of it, I should do it soon. Something’s not adding up.”

“No?”

“No. There’s a goat on the loose. I hate goats, and everything they represent.”

She tapped her pockets and her deck appeared. Morgan shuffled as she walked, taking in the newest additions to Lafayette’s.

“Let's see what the cards have to say. Lord knows they’ve been dogging my dreams.”

“Forgive my interruption, but what is this gate you mean?”

“Every witch and magician draws their power from the immaterial realms, via the Major Arcana which represents them most. For me, I am the Fool, and through my understanding of the Fool, my magic works in accordance to its domain and it became a specialised type of magic. And with that I was able to create a gate to his realm. Following?”

He shook his head.

Morgan lowered herself to the step beside him. “All right, envision Lafayette’s, yes?”

“Got it.”

“Now, the Fool lives in the kitchen,” she said. “But I am outside on the sidewalk trying to get to this kitchen. What must I do?”

“Uh, is the door locked?”

“Yes.”

“You find a key.”

“Right. Find a key. That key represents my understanding of my patron Arcana, the Fool. If my knowledge of it is weak, the key will not turn the tumblers. So, I strengthen that key, make sure the teeth are sharp. I slide it into the lock, and gain entry. But am I near the Fool?”

“No.”

“And why is that?”

“There’s a whole storefront and storage area between you and the stairs leading to the kitchen where the Fool is.”

“Exactly. The storefront is my personal bond with the card. It is not enough to know it, the Fool must have some kind of respect for me as well. It has to want me to be associated with it.” She said. “Now, I cross the threshold because the Fool trusts me, and has agreed to be my patron, and my teacher.”

“And then you get to the storage room.”

“Correct. That is my gate. It can only exist after I’ve made the key, and forged a bond with the Fool. The gate can be as small as a closet, or as grand as a country, but it will only be a reflection of the nature of the Fool. And with the gate I gain access to the stairs, and presumably the Fool lets me into the kitchen. They are all such divas, and I say that affectionately.”

“And the Devil?”

Her eyes darkened, happiness faded with the twitch of her cheek.

“There are some cards people are never supposed to have as patrons. The Devil is one of them. It is inherently bad, and the antithesis of the Fool. It is evil Upright and Reversed and no magician or witch can justify a bond to it.”

Asra swallowed. He had thought as much.

“Why? What’s wrong, puppy?”

“Nothing.”

“Shall I shuffle the cards and learn from them?”

He rubbed his eye, fatigued. “Someone died in the hospital, and I did a reading by drawing on his residual energy. And all I got was Death upright, the Magician reversed, and the Tower upright.”

“The Tower? For a dead man?”

“That’s what I said.”

She pressed a finger to her lips, deep in thought on a level he hadn’t even begun to master.

“I’m sure we’ll learn something more, but life goes on, yes?” She tousled his hair again, and stood. “I must apologise for my snooty cards. I spoil them too much. But now, it is time you make your own. Have you given thought about it?”

“Yes, actually.”

He led her into his barren room, and searched his messenger bag. Morgan was near, warm and present. She was alive, and almost back to normal.

_Can anyone get back to normal after an ordeal like that?_

Asra presented a journal. “Odette had me do a lot of research. I read, and read, and read some more, and only when I had an understanding of the Major Arcana, the Cups, the Swords, the Pentacles and the Wands did I start sketching.”

She took her time with the book as if it was a riveting novel replete with twists and turns, and a romance to rival Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet; sass and all.

Her fingers, he’d forgotten how long and elegant they were, as if she had grown up playing the piano for kings and queens and her beloved parents alike. Her poison ring was back in place, and the white residue of medical tape stayed on her skin. It wasn’t anything a bit of soap and warm water couldn’t fix.

“I love them, Asra. They are so endearing. Except the Devil. He can drop off the face of the Earth for all I care.”

“So, I’m good?”

She held up the book on the page of the Magician, eyes flicking back and forth. “A fox? It fits.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you have a special affinity for foxy things. You can breathe now, puppy. Your patron is not the Tower.”

“Thank god, I was about to keel over and fade into the void.”

“Appropriate.”

“It’s been haunting me for months. Months! I’ve never felt so attacked in my life.”

“The Tower is the bodyguard, the bouncer at the doors of the best nightclub in all the realms. It sorts the weak and the wannabees from the authentic. You passed the trial, and so,” she snapped her fingers, and a stack of blank cards manifested out of thin air.

“They said I have to know everything about the cards, even down to the type of card stock they use.”

“Yes, that is true. You could always use paper, but the danger is in the channelling. Sometimes what the cards have to say cannot be supported by flimsy cardstock.”

She handed him the blank deck wrapped in cling-film.

“These are made of papyrus for you, desert child. Mine are compressed linen which harkens back to my ancestors and the white fabric they wore when they converted to Santeria. You see, initiates have to wear white for a full year. Anyway, papyrus is strong, and lasts the ages. Feel free to use any ink, though I recommend Prakran ink, or the alcoholic ink we carry. In fact,” she squinted. “I have my old palette, if you’d care to use it?”

“I’d love to.”

“Good. That is your task for today, as well as setting up your bedroom.”

“Right.”

She nodded, but didn’t get up.

“Are you okay?”

“My goddamn knees,” she lamented. “Carry me, Asra.”

“Okay.”

“No, I wasn’t serious, you boob. Put me down. Gently does it.”

“Are you sure? It’s no trouble at all.”

He never thought he’d live to see the day when Morgan would go all rosy, and skittish and avoid his stare.

Without speaking, she laced her hands behind his head, and stared at Faust in his hoodie pocket, while he carried her to her bedroom across the way. He wished the distance was longer, but it only took a few steps and he was at the side of her bed.

Asra let her down to the floor, yet she hung on, face pressed into his shoulder.

“Tell anyone about this, and I’ll categorically deny it.”

“Tell who about what?”

She fisted his shirt. A light sniff.

“You smell like hibiscus.”

“It’s in my shampoo.”

“O-oh. Okay. Yeah, that, that makes sense.”

Her hands slipped away and he was bereft, and counting the hours until his next excuse to touch her. But he had agreed with Odette that he would not push, nor press the issue. If anything was to happen, Morgan had to be the one to make the first move.

She pulled away, but remained close enough to share body heat. In her hands were the cards again. Morgan shuffled, her eyes on his. He didn’t blink, didn’t look away.

Her elegant fingers turned over a card.

_The Lovers._

“Well, well. What are the odds of that?”

Was this really happening? If he woke up now, having manufactured this dream, he’d never forgive himself.

“Let’s not pretend that we’re civil,” she said. “You’ve been ogling me seven ways until Sunday, but likewise, so have I been eyeing you like a snack. A four-course meal. An all you can eat buffet with dessert, and a chocolate fountain to dip in every piece of fruit on my plate. But I have a theory; I think you will taste much better. I just need to see for myself.”

Asra bit the inside of his cheek.

“Oh, fuck this.”

He pushed her onto the bed, delighting in her fleeting gasp of surprise. This was happening and god help anyone who would try to stop it.

The hours waned, and the moon replaced the sun. Lafayette the living house had kept many secrets in its life, but the soundproof walls kept even more. The neighbours should be grateful.


	7. Chapter 7

He’d awoken many ways before, but never so sweetly. Soft lips trailed down his spine and across his shoulders. The fragrance of rose and ylang ylang perfumed his morning and brought a surge of life to his sleeping bones.

Sunlight warmed his exposed back but the ministrations continued, until he felt heat pool in his lower abdomen, and the memory of last night, and the following morning gave him an incentive to greet the day.

“Good morning, puppy,” she said. “Breakfast.”

He rolled over and stretched. Seeing her first, before all else, felt so incredibly right as if he had been missing the simple luxury his whole life, but could go the rest of his days making up for lost time. Her cheeks were tinted with life again, and he got to see her without her trademark dark berry lipstain, and her lethal eyeliner. She was no less beautiful, or stunning, and she was looking at him in a different capacity besides that of master and apprentice.

Though, to be fair, the dynamic shifted last night. Perhaps only because she allowed it. Something told Asra that Morgan could match him stride for stride, stroke for stroke. She could best his bites, and claw harder and deeper and push him to the edge with little more than her lips. _I’m so far gone. How did this happen so fast?_

“Breakfast in bed? I’m blessed and highly honoured.”

“You should be. I hope you like strawberries.”

“Love them,” he said. “I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but shouldn’t I be getting to the shop?”

“It’s Sunday.”

Asra tried not to celebrate too hard.

“Go on, let it out.”

He punched the air, jubilant and hardly believing his luck.

“I hope you don’t mind, puppy, but I put water in Faust’s bowl and gave her a mouse. Your mum dropped off the ones from your freezer.”

“I don’t mind at all. Did she eat it?”

“Scarfed down two, and she’s currently coiled on a pillow by the window.”

Morgan fitted a strawberry in her mouth, nibbling at it while occupied by some faraway thought. He enjoyed seeing her like this; hair loose from its bun, his shirt on her as it slipped off a dusky shoulder. Asra sat up and took the liberty of kissing the freckles and the itty bitty moles there, but he wouldn’t go any further. This was hers to set to her own pace. He’d go as fast or as slow as she dictated.

Morgan ever so gently turned her head, as if offering him the fruit. He took it by lips and teeth alone, his eyes never leaving hers. Perhaps it was her, how drunk he was on her taste already, but the strawberry was criminally sweet, and bursting with juices.

She wiped at the corner of his mouth with a delicate finger, and he teased it with his tongue.

“You’re so stunning, Asra,” she whispered. “I’d love to wreck you.”

“Please do.”

A knowing smile.

“Tell me: were you after this from the beginning?”

“I—”

“I’m not angry. You see, I also gave myself a reading that day, and no matter how much I shuffled, or how much I divided the deck, the Lovers kept coming back. Now, forgive my scepticism, but there’s always more to a simple reading. And that’s a nice scar on your chest.”

Asra didn’t bother to cover it. He hadn’t planned for last night to go the way it did, and he wouldn’t regret it if he lived to be one hundred. The scar was there to match hers, the proof that he had given something invaluable to her; a kidney and a second chance at life.

“Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t want to die. To be honest, I’ve been dreaming of my parents for weeks, and they were indeed calling me home, until I did the reading after you just waltzed into my store, and upheaved my life. The Tower must be so proud.”

He snorted.

“Anyway, you eat up, before I eat you.”

“And what if I want that?”

“I’m a recovering woman, Asra. Take pity.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“I’m joking with you, puppy. I’ve got energy to spare, if you want to see for yourself.”

Her shapely legs straddled his waist, breakfast forgotten. She was warm, warmer still where they were joined at the lips and south of them.

A knock came at the door.

“Leave room for Jesus!”

“Aunty!”

Morgan stormed off his lap and hunted her aunt with a vengeance. They had an affection for each other, as if they filled a position left vacant by the death of a loved one. Morgan had the mother she needed, and Odette had her as a daughter.

“Fight me!” She said to Odette. “Come back here right now. I just wanna talk.”

“You square up with me?” Asra heard her deep and rich laugh. “Oh kitten, you wouldn’t last a minute.”

“You’re such a bully, aunty. I can’t even enjoy the pretty things.”

“Hmm. Good morning, Asra.”

“Ma’am.”

He pulled the sheet up to his neck. It mattered little, he couldn’t read the look Odette was giving him, if she wanted to toss him out through the window, or play smug mother who was glad her child finally had a man, and was already working on the grandkids.

Asra burned at the thought of it, rushing the future as he tended to do. He never wanted kids, didn’t think there was enough room in Vesuvia for two sleepy babies, but if he just imagined his and her combined genes… If he imagined the fun they could have making this perfect child…

Asra needed a cold shower. He needed to slow down.

“I hate to ruin the fun, but I have to leave again, my love,” said Odette. “The children are not taking their mother’s death well, and their father has picked up the bottle.”

“Go, aunty. Those kids need you more than I do.”

“It won’t be for long—”

Morgan smiled. “Take as long as you need. I’ve had you to myself for too long, now it’s time you go and spread your wings, and leave the nest and alla dat.”

They hugged at the foot of the bed, during which Asra had managed to put on some clothes, with Odette’s back to him, and Morgan sparing a hungry look that lasted a second.

“When’s your flight?”

“Tomorrow, but I promised Hecate I’d stop by, so I’ll be with her today.” Odette cupped her face and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m so, so grateful you’re alive, Morgan. You’ve been my reason for living for years now. And you Asra, fate shows that it can be kind. You saved her.”

“It was nothing, truly. I gained more from this than you could ever know.”

She kissed him between the brows, her hands cool, palms soft.

“Take care of yourself, hmm?”

“I will, Odette.”

She bid them goodbye as Hecate would be taking her to the airport from her house. It was just them alone in the solitude, Asher and Grey singing. The doorbell jingled, and she was gone.

“Well, your tea’s cold.”

“Mhmm,” he said.

Morgan took the mug in hand, and then steam began to rise. The tea was as hot as it would be straight from the kettle.

“What’s the plan for today?”

“I’m just gonna take it easy, catch up on some reading. This will be a good time for you to work on your deck, puppy.” She said, looking down at his feet. “Toe rings?”

“Ask no questions, hear to lies.”

There she went again, lip between her teeth and looking all sorts of sinful.

“I truly, truly want to ruin you.”

“And I keep inviting you to. If you can manage me, that is.”

“Oh!” she said, hand to her chest. “Oh well excuse me! Here I was thinking you were a power bottom.”

“If I want to be.” He stepped closer. “On top however is the best view in the house. You must allow me to demonstrate sometime.”

“Yes, mustn’t I?”

Her fingers were on the waistband of his pants, brushing his happy trail. She pulled at it.

“The carpet does match the drapes,” she said. “Hmm. Tell me great apothecary, I’ve got this thing in my throat. What do you recommend?”

“What is ‘this thing’?”

Her lips curled, and Asra went red, his internal temperatures surpassing safe levels.

“Well? Spit or swallow?”

“Swallow, I dare you.”

“It’s not a dare if I enjoy it, now is it?” She said. “Your tea is getting cold.”

She inched down the waistband of his pants, and got to her knees. The mug was in one hand, still steaming. He was so thirsty, but she hadn’t stopped smiling an invitation for sin and ruin. He couldn’t drink as she took him into her mouth. He’d choke.

They both would.

“You’ve got to learn to multitask, puppy.”

He flinched. Her breath teased his skin, and the hand holding the mug trembled.

“Drink. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

She wasn’t gentle, and Asra’s soul had left his body at some point. It had yet to return. He was praying for strength, and for his brain to work. Maybe he needed glasses. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken her up on her offer to ruin him.

He was at a drawing table with his blank deck of papyrus cards, the inks and his sketchbook at hand. Faust judged him from her pillow, all warm and fed, and basking in the sun.

“Not a word,” he said.

_Absent-minded!_

“What did I just say?”

“What did who say?” Morgan came from the bathroom, and dried her hair on the way to the kitchen, though, not before she stopped, carded her fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp. Again he came undone. Asra’s eyes rolled back into his head as she worked her damned magic, the pads of her fingers working from the crown to his hairline, to his side burns and around the back.

“That’s n-not fair,” he sighed.

“Haven’t you heard?”

The delicate caress became a demanding tug, as she pulled his head back. He fought a little, enough for it to sting, but he was putty in her hands. A hungry bottom indeed.

“Have I told you how wondrous you are, Asra? So dewy and glowing. And so, so pretty?”

“_Hnng_.”

Lips, plush and fragrant like strawberries ghosting over his. She was so close, if only he could just close the distance.

“Oh, you’ve started your deck? I’ll let you get to it, puppy. Take your time.”

And with that, she took her glass of orange juice, and her tome and went into the small backyard where the sheets dried in the sunlight.

“Not a word, Faust.” He said, fixing himself.

_Plaything._

He had the decency to be insulted.

It was like waiting for a computer to boot up. Asra’s brain sputtered and wheezed, it tried to compute but to no avail. The least he could do was transfer the sketches to the deck, and work on laying out the colours of alcoholic on the glass mixing palette.

The first card in the deck was the Fool. Even these things would remind him or her, not-so-subtly.

He had tried to think of an animal to fit the Fool, as all of his Major and Minor Arcana would be represented by a creature, critter or beast. For weeks, nothing came to mind, and even then he couldn’t think of anything, and so the Fool would be without a face. For the best.

Asra painted rock plateau overlooking a green field. The sun was rendered in glittery golden ink, and the edges of the card were painted a crisp black. Next came the Magician, a fox-headed being resplendent in a red robe.

Then came the High Priestess, an owl, and the Empress, a cow, and the Emperor, a bull. And so on and so on. It wasn’t long before Asra fell into a trance-like state or repetitive painting and mixing, and applying and outlining in pen. The hours passed, and the sun grew weary, yet Asra continued, lost in the Arcana. He didn’t stop, didn’t take a break until they were all laid out before him, and the last he had worked on was the Devil.

It stared back at him, a foul goat with chains binding two snakes that eerily resembled Chimes and Flamel. More curious still, the snakes were wrapped around him, imprisoning the Devil as well, but not as fairly.

Someone was calling to him, a velvet siren’s song.

“Asra!”

He snapped out of his fog, and brought the world into focus.

“Easy, easy puppy. You’re all right.”

“Where am I? What time is it?”

“You’re in my shop, Lafayette’s. It’s a quarter to six.”

Morgan reviewed his work.

“I was going to say take a break, but you’re done. Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I just… got carried away.”

There was none of her playfulness from earlier. Morgan was severe, and critical of either him, or the cards. Or both. She picked up the Devil, and could barely conceal her sneer.

“Do you realize what you’ve painted?”

“No. That wasn’t the design I had planned.”

“I bet it’s not. Aren’t those two snakes your parents’ own?”

He squinted at it. “Yes. What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. Her hand was light on his shoulder. “Come, help me with dinner, and we’ll let the cards dry overnight and talk about it in the morning, puppy.”

“Sure.”

He cast one last scathing glance at the Devil, but left it alone, before he tried to burn it.

But something in the back of his mind told him he wouldn’t be so lucky, and the burning wouldn’t come easily.


	8. Chapter 8

There were markets in Vesuvius; grand and vivid and sprawling. Morgan cut a path through the crowds of people, or rather, they seemed to part like a dark sea under her command. She had things to buy, she said, fabric for a customer, stock for the shop, and a treat for him and something for Faust.

On the topic of Faust, she went where he did, snuggled in his hoodie in the last autumn months when the weather was turning, and the days were growing shorter. No one here questioned why he had a snake in his pocket—innuendo notwithstanding until Morgan had scoffed an apology out of him—but some vendors were so beguiled they gave her any tiny treat they could spare. And she was so smug, and so satisfied, Asra believed she’d trade him for a fluffy white mouse any day.

_Never! _She said.

“Mhmm. Yeah, but you haven’t seen the mice now, have you?”

_Always you. Asra first!_

“You do put it on thick. I wonder who you got that from.”

He caught up with Morgan at a stall of spices, and she rattled off her order to the vendor who took it all down.

“A lot of these are Ayurvedic spices, good for internal health, but more commonly associated with hair growth. Ashwagandha, neem, brahmi, amla.”

“Is that your secret to your hair? I recall it being very long when you loosen it, and very, very strong when I pull.”

Morgan coughed. “If you ruin my image as a stone-faced witch, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Good thing we didn’t have an audience.”

Her façade was cracking.

“You’re so expressive though.”

“Asra, we’re here for spice.”

“Mhmm, and you must be cinnamon, because I love to sprinkle you on everything.”

“I can’t take you anywhere.” But there was a ghost of something good on her lips.

The order with the spice vendor went through, and it was on to the next, down the winding path. Asra had never done this before. Enjoyed silent but productive company with someone else, even someone he was romantically inclined toward. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was sex first, ask questions later, and personal ones never. He’d had anger to smother, and itches to scratch both of which Ilya had satisfied. For a moment.

This was different. It was new, and refreshing and gave him hope that he could be… well, Ilya hadn’t lied when he said all those things back at the hospital. Asra was a spoiled brat. Worse, he was an unhappy, unfulfilled, greedy brat. Oh, how his mother would die if she knew he wasn’t her sweet habibi. Asra burned with shame.

Don’t misquote him, Asra loved his parents to the ends of the Earth and back. They provided for him, he had food on the table even when times were hard, and he had their love, especially when times were hard. There was nothing lacking in him they couldn’t tend to, save for one vice Asra couldn’t name. He shouldn’t be like this, should he? So ungrateful when he was blessed in so many ways? There was nothing wrong, nothing at all. Yet, he’d never felt more at a disequilibrium.

The name of Asra’s vice: wrath.

And his target, his number one enemy? Himself.

Asra was a paragon of self-loathing, but he’d been creative with his expressions of it. A soldering iron to his palm was easily explained when his father had caught him. “It slipped.” And that was the end of it. Salim had tended to the wound, and deprived Asra of a scar. There were other instances, other tries to get under his own skin, but when he’d seen Salim and Aisha’s worry, Asra learned his loathing was no longer contained to the self. Himself. So he had stopped, as easily as that.

They just didn’t see when and where and with whom he had resumed his practice.

“I admit it’s not much, but Selassi makes my favourite bread.”

“Hmm?” He said, the world snapping into focus. They had arrived at a little bakery. Tables and chairs were placed outside of the establishment that was built around an authentic clay kiln. He turned around, and the spice vendor was nowhere in sight. Had he really walked all that way lost in the clouds? _It’s getting bad again._

And Morgan hadn’t been spared. This was her surprise to him, to share her favourite food, and favourite place with him, and he had missed it.

Faust wiggled around in his hoodie. _Far away again?_

He said nothing and tried to plaster on a smile, but Morgan knew. Of course she did, nothing ever escaped her.

“So, what is this you wanted to share?”

“I just told you. Pumpkin bread. But if you don’t want to stay, we can—”

“No! No, no, this is fine. I’m just overwhelmed by everything here. I’ve never been to this market. Mom and dad typically go grocery shopping when I’m sleeping in.”

“Ah,” she said, and left it at that.

The baker came, a jovial sort. Plump and built from years of kneading dough for his special breads. Most of the conversation he had with Morgan was lost, as Asra watched her light up and smile, and laugh. But he felt it, the distance grow. When would she realize he was a hollow shell? Pretty on the outside, true, but empty of the life that should dwell within it.

He’d worry about that later, as someone had invited themselves to their table. Some disheveled tragedy with black hair and far too many tattoos.

And his shirt was open.

“Hiya, Momo.”

“Ugh,” she rolled her eyes. “Leave before I turn you into a rose, Crow.”

“You promised you wouldn’t,” he said, leaning in. The chair dropped onto its four legs again, as he had been rocking it obnoxiously. “Oh, whoa, wait a second. What do we have here? A date?”

“Don’t you have some demons to hide from?”

“Don’t we all, love?”

_Who the fuck—_

“Asra, this pleasant ray of usefulness is Crow. Lafayette’s familiar.” She said. “Crow, this is Asra.”

“I know that name. And if the walls were any thinner—”

“You won’t finish that.”

He raised his hands, then offered one to Asra, who shook it, full suspicion.

“I don’t understand. How can you be a familiar and a real person?”

“He was Lafayette’s old boyfriend,” she said. “He got her pregnant and ditched her and the baby. She cursed him to be a crow to watch over that baby and all her descendants until one of them released him of the curse. So yes, he was a person first. An obnoxious, self-entitled, egotistical fuckboy.”

“Get out while you can,” he said to Asra. “If you make this one mad, maybe she’ll mess up the spell enough that you can kill yourself. She’ll strip you of your name, and the rest of your identity you’ll lose with time, and time you’ll have plenty of.”

Morgan didn’t deny it, though she found no happiness in it.

“I tried to release him, but Odette says I’m not the generation to do so. He was close though.”

He snorted. “Close?”

“What happened?”

She looked up. “My parents were killed in the car crash, voiding any progress he made. My mom was the one to release him for several generations of protection, and just as the seal was expiring…”

“The crash.” He said.

“Yes.”

“I had one job, right?” said Crow. “Fucked that up pretty good.”

“But Crow did save my life, so there’s that. Now, the contract is renewed, and he has more Lafayettes to watch over.”

Crow was all seriousness now, and it was heavy tinged with bitterness. His tattoos weren’t mere decorations but a series of glyphs from the arcane practices acting like a chain to his condition. He was tired, Asra could see it then, and he had bullet wounds and old scars littering his exposed chest and arms.

“You must be—”

“Old? I am. Older than a human should be. But I deserved it, right?” He stood, and pushed in the chair. “Anyway, I just came to see how you were doing outta the hospital, Morgan. You look good, an’ healthy.”

“Thanks, Crow. Please, take care of yourself.”

He gestured to his collection of scars. “We all know that’s not gonna happen.”

They both watched him walk away until the crowd swallowed him up. Morgan sighed, shaking her head.

“That hex wasn’t fair. She made it in a moment of anger, and it cost them both. I mean, the whole obnoxious, self-entitled, egotistical fuckboy thing is true, but that's not enough to curse someone the way she did.”

“What would it take to make a curse like that?”

“Pure rage, betrayal and an innocent soul. Lafayette broke a sacred tenant among my kind; never use a child. An innocent. The cost for doing so is devastating, and so destructive it's never worth it.” She said. “That curse affects all of us to this day. It’s why we’re so damned unlucky.”

Selassie put the bread on the table, and cups of tea to complement the flavour.

“Why did he run?”

“He didn’t, and that’s the foolish thing about it.”

Morgan stirred her tea.

“It was the time of World War One, and young men were being conscripted with barely any notice. Crow was called to serve, and in that split second, Lafayette misunderstood his duty to his country as his abandonment of them, and she didn’t give him a chance to explain. What a waste. What a stupid, irresponsible waste.”

The teacup shattered. It was decisive, and to the point.

“I got it,” he said, mopping up the spill. “Tell me something; how come you call her Lafayette? What’s her first name?”

“Her name was stricken from our memories. We know her, and what she did, but the Coven made an example out of her. My family does not reward those who curse them.”

“I’m sorry.”

"So am I, Asra. So am I."

Morgan wrapped up the bread. “I’ll leave the rest of the shopping to tomorrow. The heat’s got me a bit piqued today.”

“Sure. I’ll make us some lemonade.”

“That would be lovely, thank you.” She said. “Hey, Asra.”

“Hmm?”

“What… Never mind.”

“No, say it. I want to hear.”

“What were you thinking about so heavily that you completely zoned out? Is something wrong at home?”

_Kind and considerate to a fault. I truly don’t deserve you._

“I’m dealing with your world and mine colliding. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, of course, but I have a great deal of things to unlearn and replace with better habits. All I ask is that you be patient with me.”

Her fingers ghosted over his jaw, cool and present. “Things take time.”

“Yes, don’t I know it?”

**Author's Note:**

> * I'm unsure about how many weeks vacation American and other countries get for Christmas, but where I'm from, it's normal to have 4 weeks to a month and a half for college.


End file.
